It is the fortieth anniversary of “Top Gun” (1986), which adapts Ehud Yonay’s California Magazine article, “Top Guns” (May 1983). With Paramount re-releasing it in theaters as a double feature with “Top Gun: Maverick” (2022), six years later, the bill has come due to see both films in the theaters as a double feature. I refused to see the latter because I did not feel like rewatching the prior or giving my money to a man who owns a Hawaiian island and may be considered a god so while critics raved about the sequel, I remained stubborn until now when the conditions are exactly what I requested. “Top Gun: Maverick” basically uses the nostalgia from the original film and uses it as a back story for an unofficial “Mission: Impossible” entry with Ethan Hunt revealing his alter ego, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. The sequel is longer and better than the original and probably will not feel as dated as the original does forty years later. Without a chick or a child, Maverick (Tom Cruise) cannot get a promotion because he keeps pissing off his superiors and resisting change. Now an Admiral, the Iceman (Val Kilmer) tasks his old rival turned respected colleague and friend with teaching the best of the best to prepare for an impossible to accomplish and survive mission (wink), but with Goose’s son, Rooster (Miles Teller), as one of the candidates, will Maverick be able to let go?
Basically, “Top Gun: Maverick” is an action movie devoted to showing that the old man has still got it and can beat younger adults at their physical peak. Cruise is hotter here than in the original. If it was a horror movie, people would suspect that Maverick hangs out with so many young people because he is syphoning their life force undetected. He mostly wears white t-shirts and blue jeans when he is not in some variation of uniform. During the shirtless beach football scene, he is scorching, but if you are focusing, director Joseph Kosinski shows Cruise in fractions, not in one big, unflinching gaze. Marlene Dietrich would approve. Speaking of looking better than when they were younger, Jennifer Connolly appears as a bar owner and love interest, Penny, the admiral’s daughter referenced in the first film.
Attitude wise, Maverick is like Ethan Hunt in spirit because he wants to make sure that everyone survives the mission and beat back a world that wants to eject human beings from flight then substitute them with unmanned drones. He still feels so much guilt over the death of his best friend, Goose (Anthony Edwards), that he becomes Rooster’s surrogate father complete with father-son issues that play out in the infrastructure of the naval hierarchy. So it becomes a story of giving freedom to kids and moving on from the mistakes of the past, which is an excuse to vindicate anything that Ethan, I mean Maverick, does, which is valid because the action sequences are chef’s kiss, soup to nuts, opening with the impromptu, insubordinate Mach 10 test, which introduces Ed Harris.
How good is Harris? When the prototype jet shakes everything, Harris is unmovable, and it feels credible. Harris only appears in the opening, but it sets the tone of what Maverick should be if he was normal and excellent versus who he is, which is someone who fails to launch except in one spectacular area, and that field may be taken away from him. When Jon Hamm takes over as the disapproving establishment, it feels like a smidge of a demotion, and Hamm is not bad, just not Harris.
Who keeps Maverick in the cockpit? Adm. Tom “Iceman” Kazansky, and if ever there was an argument against AI, it is Kilmer’s final performance. On March 18, 2026, news broke that a posthumous, AI generated Kilmer would appear in a movie with his family’s consent. Sorry, I’m with Prince on this one. As good as that performance may be, it is not the same as having a person in a weathered, ailing body bringing that three dimensional, all senses lived experience to the role, which Kilmer does as Iceman before he utters a word. Perhaps some will find this detail repulsive, but when Kilmer struggles to keep his saliva in his mouth and talk, it is the most gorgeous moment in “Top Gun: Maverick,” and his humanity gives permission for Cruise to step his game up. It is the emotional heart of the story: the struggle to function when you are falling apart and succeeding. It is the real mission. AI cannot do it because it has a different experience that deals with concepts without an innate understanding of how it works in a tactile way. If you ever ask AI to make art based on a concept, it is not long before it accidentally creates something that looks monstrous but intending for the image to look beautiful and accurate. AI cannot accomplish what a dying Kilmer could do when he played a dying character with both the actor and the character having a history with the material and Cruise.
“Top Gun: Maverick” would not be a “Top Gun” movie without the young too. The way that Glenn Powell talks about his experience, you would think that he sat at Cruise’s feet like a disciple. Well, if he did, you cannot tell from watching the film. As Hangman, Powell does a great job, and it is one of the more memorable roles since his character manages to get under everyone’s skin and is like Maverick 2.0, but his screentime is just a skosh over nominal. Phoenix (Monica Barbaro) is like a glorified prose dumper and the Smurfette of the group. If Barbaro looks familiar, you subsequently saw her in “A Complete Unknown” (2024) and “Crime 101” (2026). Lewis Pullman plays Bob, an understated but a much-needed diversity hire as the nerd of the program instead of a bunch of confident hot shots. The others are shown in blink and miss it fashion: Manny Jacinto, Jay Ellis from “Freaky Tales” (2025), and Danny Ramirez from “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” (2021). Again, they are a glorified ruler to measure Maverick’s awesomeness except for Teller, who deserved an Oscar for pretending that he is blonde, sporting that mustache and still having that old school, naturalistic acting style that somehow simultaneously embodies old school Hollywood and contemporary realism. Compliment: Teller is old young or young old, and it makes him standout in a way that gives an added gravitas to his characters than may be on the page.
If critics adore “Top Gun: Maverick” more than it deserves, as a thirty-six-year-old sequel, it deserves a huge percentage of that praise because it is responsible for bringing people back to the theaters after the pandemic. Cruise is a strange, arrested development of a man like his characters, unable to function normally in society while wanting to, enjoying others’ life leftovers, but having greatness in a way that validates his dysfunction instead of seeing if there is a way to coexist. When he meets Penny’s daughter and asks about her father, I wonder which experiences he drew that scene from and wondered if another shoe would drop, a twist about her parentage, but fortunately nope. He is still Maverick but now getting lectures from children too.
And for the record, “Top Gun: Maverick” is better than “F1: The Movie” (2025).
